


floating, sinking

by Taeyn



Series: I have loved the stars too fondly [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Affection, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Comfort/Angst, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Gen, Healing, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Season/Series 06, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-05-24 07:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14950368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taeyn/pseuds/Taeyn
Summary: The rift has taught Lotor too many things, and it feels like only a breath since he fell. He knows he’s still screaming- wild and hollow and matchless- and a part of him is too severed to let them see, another knows it’s the only way to ask, while another is no longer screaming at all.





	floating, sinking

Will he call to them? The rift has taught Lotor too many things, and it feels like only a breath since he fell. He knows he’s still screaming- wild and hollow and matchless- and a part of him is too severed to let them see, another knows it’s the only way to ask, while another is no longer screaming at all.

It’s the quintessence that allows him to reach her. He feels sick, elated, split through every faultline. But were he unbroken he wouldn’t be able to stretch so far, his claws tracting into the threads of the universe and the secrets he never should have known.

Again and again, and she doesn’t answer. Only an echo of her voice remains.

_We can’t just leave him._

_Leave him?_ Lotor’s mouth follows the shape of the words, the mecha’s systems dark as his body drifts toward the viewshield. His eyes have started bruising from the pressure, shadowed like some strange, squashed fruit below his skin. He doesn’t recognise himself. He doesn’t understand the meaning of the sound anymore.

_Can’t?_

Leave him.

-

The tears don’t come until they’re alone.

“Is it the hair?” Shiro husks, he keeps ebbing in and out of sleep, sprawled in the black lion’s cabin and cradled in Keith’s arms.

Keith, who was trying to cry quietly, abruptly splutters out a laugh, then sobs into the palm of his hand, tries to pinch his nose to spare Shiro the sight.

“ _No_ ,” he says thickly, his voice wavering so badly that he smiles and shakes his head. “...I’m happy.”

Shiro turns and leans his brow against Keith’s chest, and suddenly Keith doesn’t care (he cares with everything he has), he wraps his arms fiercely around Shiro’s front and chokes through an inhale, makes a taut, shuddering noise as his fists cage into Shiro’s shirt.

“Shiro,” Keith blurts, high-pitched and harsh with relief. He buries his face in Shiro’s neck as Shiro holds him tight.

“I have so much to tell you-” Keith manages, then turns his head when he swallows the wrong way and needs to cough, Shiro sitting up and resting his hand on Keith’s back.

How do you begin to say that you’ve existed in another place- that part of you always will- and that, somehow, still, you’re ever more sharply right here, right home.

From beneath Shiro’s lock of white, his eyes crease, his mouth pulls to a hard line. A tear spills from his eye and Shiro makes no move to mend it, it leaves a bright dash across his cheek and soaks wetly into Keith’s lap.

_I’ve been there too._

_I’m happy too._

“Keith,” he whispers, “I love you too.”

-

The light bends on its axis, and Krolia can see him again. She can see him resting his head on her swollen stomach, his big, silly hands and the roughness of his jaw on her skin.

“Not long now,” she tells him gently. Krolia is not worried, she has no need to be, but when her mate tries his best to look strong, she knows he can’t help it.

“Have you ignited the ceremonial fires of welcome?” Krolia coos encouragingly, trying to soothe him. Everything will be fine. She can feel it, as deep and as softly as she feels his lifeforce twined with hers.

“ _What_ ,” he blurts, and Krolia can’t hold her straight face, she brims to a hopeless smile when he nearly falls off the bunk. He’s so easy.

They eventually move the pillows outside, it’s nightfall and Krolia loves the desert and the stars. She tells him of the old Galran legend, the last solar flare of the night will touch the child’s path. It’s only folklore, but enough of those tales have been lost to the war. Here in her mate’s arms, even so far from her people, they finally feel like they mean something.

She splays her palm where she knows his heart beats, his fingers coarse and warm as he squeezes hers back.

“I thought I'd feel it,” she whispers, her eyes stinging viciously as the light fades out. “If ever you left without me.”

She can still recall his easy scent, the way he couldn’t dance to save himself, his funny, noisy land-vehicle that made her feel faster than lightspeed.

“Now here’s a human thing,” her mate drawls gruffly, his voice all low and tangled as he keeps her hand clasped to his chest. “Where I come from, ‘can tell you without a doubt I never did. Wherever I am, I’m with you.”

Krolia can hear their baby, she can see herself pointing to the sky above. He looks at her and smiles, and a small piece of the universe unshatters in her heart.

-

Allura finds Coran as the sun rises, his uniform crumpled and his grandfather’s toolkit not too far from his feet.

When she was young and the trips between planets long, Coran once showed her every widge and gadget in the box, Allura catching on swiftly and even helping him fix one of the castle ziplines.

“Better than new,” King Alfor had said warmly, when they tested the zipline after, and Coran had balled his hands enthusiastically, declared it was all the work of the castle’s brightest new engineer. Allura had felt a swell of joy, which soon turned to shrieks and giggling as her father lifted her up, let her ride all the way to the red lion in his arms.

The toolkit looks a lot emptier now, the lid slightly battered where it had been stowed in a hurry.

“My apologies, Princess,” Coran says gently, when he turns around to see Allura, he’d been too lost in thought to hear her approach. “I-”

He halts in surprise as Allura opens her arms, hugs him with every bit of feeling she would her father. Coran had always been there to raise her spirits; her teacher, her mentor, her friend.

“You once told me he would be proud of me,” Allura whispers into his shoulder, presses the diamond that was once their castle into his hand. She closes both palms over his fist. “I know with all my heart, wherever he is, he is so proud of you now.”

-

Lance is sitting on top of Blue when Keith hauls himself up beside. Red isn’t always keen on these one-sided heart to hearts, and the fact Blue kept her shield down so Lance could climb up… well, he didn’t quite know what that meant, but it did make him feel a bit better.

“You look like you’ve been bawling your eyes out,” Lance says dryly, as Keith plops down next to Blue’s ears.

“Oh yeah, I have,” Keith shrugs, then ruffles a hand through his hair, swipes his sleeve below his nose just in case. “How about you?”

Lance groans and flops backward on the lion. Even when his face is all blotchy and swollen, Keith is still way too _Keith_ when he wants to be.

“Yeah, pretty much the same,” Lance admits after a moment, then digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, not sure whether he’s going to laugh or start sobbing all over again. “That and talking to an enormous magical robotic lion for about an hour. Y’know, the usual.”

“I reckon,” Keith says on an exhale, but Lance peeks open an eye and catches Keith’s expression, and suddenly they’re both too drained not to smile.

“Uugh, Keith, I’m an idiot,” Lance mumbles, and he pulls the front of his shirt over his face as if to emphasise the point. He can feel Keith lay down next to him, his old red jacket all annoying and scratchy and his elbow wedged uncomfortably into Lance’s side.

Lance shuffles slightly closer.

“Come here then,” Keith says quietly, and he turns to face him, puts an arm over Lance’s back and gathers him against his chest. “I missed you, idiot.”

Lance blinks inside his shirt in astonishment, leans into the comforting rise and fall of Keith’s lungs. He’s shivering, Keith’s hand steady between his shoulders, warm where his face rests on Lance’s brow. He’s never been hugged by Keith before, and Lance doesn’t know what to do, his throat prickling as he wants to tell him over and over, _don’t go, don’t let me go_.

“Stop making me feel better,” Lance wails, the last of his composure dissolving as he hiccups into Keith’s front. “I’m the one who let Shiro down. And I let Allura down. I was so focused- on- everything- else-”

He expects Keith to stop him, to remind him Shiro’s back and Allura’s okay, but Keith just gently tugs Lance’s shirt down so he can see him.

“Want to tell me about it?” Keith murmurs.

Lance trembles as he sips a breath, can’t help a half-smile as it sounds all quivery, then laughs as Keith furrows an eyebrow, as if to say, _and you thought_ I _looked bad?_

“Yeah,” Lance whispers.

And the universe feels a little more saved.

-

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading! ^^ there are a few more post-s6 character interactions I would love to write a bit more on, but here we are for now c': any kudos and comments are always adored and warmly appreciated<3!


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